Grades and Attendance II

So Saturday I was kind of taking some time off after having worked for weeks on the yet unreleased High School V Planner. After a short time with real life and TV, I decided that a few hours away from my spreadsheets was more than enough time off and I started a brand new Grades and Attendance file. My Grades and Attendance files are so old that I used them for my kids and it was time for a new version, a whole new version, a completely made from blank sheets version and that is what I’ve done.

What is a G&A? For those who are unfamiliar with the G&A files, they are spreadsheets into which one enters scores and mark a calendar for one student in order to keep track of grades and attendance. In the state where I live, grades and attendance totals are reported and I made the file for my use and I put it online as well.

First of all, I’ve heard from more than a few homeschoolers who have subjects into the teens – 14, 15, 16 subjects – for one child; and I’ve listened.

G&A II supports up to 40 classes. Forty classes! Here is some more good news – I’m going to ask you to work with Course Types in G&A II. Normally I would call this “course categories”.

Info Sheet at G&A II – Click image to see full size

The image above is the Info sheet. This is where you will enter names, dates, course types, and classes. There is room for 10 course types and each course type supports a certain amount of classes. Choose which row for classes based on how many classes are in the course type. Language arts, for instance, is a course type that can have many classes and in the sample image above, language arts is placed in the row that supports 8 classes. Mathematics is a course type that typically does not have many classes and it is placed in the row that supports 2 classes. The Info sheet is prefilled with course types and classes that you should change to suit your student’s course of study.

This is how it looks on the Report. I took this screenshot of the report sheet after removing most of the sample grades. One can still see the general layout and how the classes appear. The “well being” course type is almost full and can serve as an example of how the classes on the report looks with grades.

The Calendar

In G&A II I completely changed the calendar too. The calendar is now a horizontal format that makes it much easier to mark attendance. Not only that, I made is so that you can decide what keys to use!Oh, and please do not change the keys after you’ve marked the calendar. If you do, the old keys will no longer count and the attendance count will be wrong unless you go back and mark it with your new keys.

I coded in a few warnings that yell at you in red when you do something wrong. =)

The Grading Sheets

There are only six grading sheets and some of them share a course type. I have almost clearly marked this on the grading sheets themselves. The shared grading sheet will have the second course type on the right under a yellow heading. I’ve placed other color markers as well.

Each class can have up to 3 score weights, or grade weights. Adding a weight above a column makes it a “weighted grading column” and the formula expects that, at some point, there will be scores in the weighted grading columns. If there is no need for weights, enter 100% into the first column and nothing in the other two.

This is all that you do at the grading sheets –

Set up the grading columns and, optionally, add labels for the columns

Choose a grade scale for the classes – there are three to choose from. It is normal to use the same grade scale for all classes, especially in grades K-8 and this grader is designed for grades K-8.

Choose a grade scale for the overall grade. This should be the same as the grade scale that is used for all or most the classes in the course type.

Add scores. Enter an ordinary number like 99. Each weighted grading column MUST have at least one score entered in the column per quarter.

A note on the Grade Scales and GS1 – They can be edited. If GS1 is not exactly the grade scale that you want, it is easier to edit GS1 than to change all of the grades scales for all of the classes in the grader.

I think that is it, except for one more thing – This new G&A II does not currently support credits and gpa, so it is not for high school students. It can be used for a high school student, but you would have to figure out the credits and gpa yourself and it is not hard to do. A future version of G&A II supporting credits and gpa might be made, by me, someday possibly, but I can’t say when.

One other thing – The file is brand new. It might not be flawless; I checked it but I do not always catch everything. Let me know if you find anything wrong with it.